PORTLAND, Ore.—Tita Maria, a Filipino immigrant who works as a caregiver at a care home in Portland, has become the face of wage theft in town. Over the course of 14 years on the job and being paid less than $50 a day, it’s estimated that her employer could have stolen up to $195,000 in wages that she should have been due.
Maria immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 52 due to a lack of economic opportunity in the Philippines and the need to support her family. She’d only been able to complete a 4th-grade education and doesn’t speak, read, or write in English. Arriving in Portland, she took a job as a caregiver with a well-known member of the local Filipino community.
Instead of an opportunity to improve her life in the U.S., however, the job turned out to be a case of super-exploitation. After learning about her situation, a community coalition has come together to fight for the wages Maria is owed.
On Tuesday, June 3, over 100 community members representing numerous organizations—including BAYAN, People Organizing for Philippine Solidarity (POPS), Kalikasan Solidarity Organization (KSO), Migrante, SEIU 503, the Portland Club of the Communist Party USA, and more—gathered for a rally to support.
Rally organizers have put forward three demands on Maria’s previous employer:
- Come to the table for discussion and settlement.
- Apologize for the stolen wages.
- Return the stolen wages, totaling $195,000.
Wage theft is the largest category of theft in America, and as Maria’s case shows, workers in Portland are not exempt. Migrante Portland calculated the amount Maria is owed by reviewing payment records and comparing them to the actual hours worked.
A union member from SEIU 503, which represents a variety of workers across OregonCase of super exploitation—including caregivers like Maria—spoke at the rally. The SEIU representative expressed outrage that fellow workers and migrants were being threatened with deportation by their employers.
Wage theft can occur in numerous ways: pushing employees to work off the clock, stealing tips, refusing to give workers breaks, withholding benefits, simply not paying the wages that were agreed to, or paying vulnerable workers less than the law requires.
It can be difficult to combat, especially without a union. The problem is also much more widespread than many realize.
Oregon has a few billionaires, and one is well known for being a wage thief: Phil Knight, Nike co-founder. There are numerous reports of underpaid Nike workers around the world, such as Cambodian factory workers being paid $204 per month after 12 years on the job working up to 76 hours per week, workers in Thailand who were denied furlough pay when their factory shut down during the 2020 pandemic, and other workers all across the Nike supply chain in India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
While all workers in the U.S. face the threat of wage theft, migrant workers particularly face higher risks of wage theft and abuse by their employers. One dairy farmer in Minnesota told a worker to “go back to Mexico” after he was confronted about missing wages, and in another case, a farm supervisor withheld a paycheck for 168 hours of work because a two-week notice was not provided.
A recent report from the Colorado Department of Labor found that “farm owners failed to pay workers on time or at the correct rate” and “forced workers to take out loans that had to be paid back,” and said it was a nationwide problem.
According to the Oregon Health Authority, there are an estimated 174,000 migrant and seasonal farmworkers in Oregon. With the Trump administration’s recent quota to arrest 3,000 people per day, the situation for migrant workers is dire, as employers will be emboldened by the standards for treating workers that have been set by the White House.
Whether at Nike, on a farm, at Starbucks, or in any company, the situation is the same: Companies are reaping massive profits by not paying workers for their labor in one form or another.
Wage theft is present everywhere, from the Global South to the U.S. heartland; it is ingrained into the capitalist system, another means of exploiting labor. Maria is a local example of a much broader issue that affects not just migrant workers, but every worker.
The chair of the Portland CPUSA Club said, “By joining the pressure campaign to recover Tita Maria’s wages, we participate in one woman’s struggle, but we also stand up on behalf of the entire working class.”
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